No Place For Hate ® Banner School...Bruning Davenport High School

Bruning-Davenport Banner Presentation

Football fans had more to cheer about than the game during half-time at Bruning-Davenport’s homecoming this fall. The small Nebraska high school of 71 students was awarded the prestigious No Place for Hate® title after a year of tackling bigotry and bias on campus. Led by National Honor Society students, the campaign rallied the school together around shared values of inclusion, respect and teamwork.

After signing the ADL’s Resolution of Respect, the students engaged in a number of barrier-breaking activities designed to build unity across social divisions. Last spring, Bruning-Davenport joined Lincoln High School students in a country-city exchange so they could learn about different cultures. Besides visiting each other’s schools, the students participated in anti-bias workshops where they shared ideas about confronting stereotypes and building friendships from farms to city streets.

“The differences in the ethnicities were amazing, but the similarities were also surprising,” one student remarked.

The school also brought in RESPECT2, an educational theatre company which teaches students to build healthy relationships and combat bullying.

This fall, Bruning-Davenport will join more than 2 million students nationwide on the annual Mix It Up at Lunch Day. The event—coordinated through the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teaching Tolerance—encourages students to break out of their cliques and sit with someone new in the cafeteria.

“Bruning-Davenport should be very proud of its students,” ADL Regional Director Alan Potash said. “So many schools today are hotbeds of bullying and exclusion so when a high school makes a concerted effort to unify, it’s a real achievement.”